Re: Rebuild Kernel for Qube 2 on sarge and LCD Status Display like woody

[Stuart Longland <stuartl@longlandclan.hopto.org>]

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Marcus Schwarz wrote:
> Martin Michlmayr wrote:
>
> Hi Martin
>
>> Also, if you let us know which modules are useful, we can built them
>> into future versions of the Debian kernel.  I know the Qube has one
>> PCI slot but I'm not sure what people put in there.  I guess sound
>> cards make sense, but what else?
>>
> I would prefer soundcards , firewire and usb support just as modules. I
> guess this should be good enough.
>

Some other devices you might want to consider:

* Network interfaces (i.e. wireless or ethernet)
* SCSI Support (to hook up external drives)
* ISDN & PSTN Modems (i.e. the Lucent-based Winmodems that the Gateway
Microservers came with -- or at least the one mine came with)
* PPPoE support for ADSL users

This is one of the main sticking points I had with Debian Woody, is the
lack of support for these devices.  Certainly modules will suffice for
this, after all, even if the kernel did have SCSI support built in, the
PROM still doesn't know anything about SCSI -- and won't ever know.

With the LCD panel, I also find it very useful to know what's happening
at startup.  IMHO this could also be useful for those with LCD4Linux
compatable display panels, so it shouldn't be a cobalt-specific
extension.  Is it possible for the rc scripts (the ones fired off by
init, not just the ones in /etc/init.d) to put in a generic message?

i.e.
if [ -x /etc/rc.lcd ]; then
	source /etc/rc.lcd	# <-- User defined
	LCDOK=1
fi

for file in /etc/rc.$RUNLEVEL/S*; do
	if [ "$LCDOK" = 1 ]; then
		service=`basename \`readlink $file\``
		putlcd_starting $service
	fi

	$file start

	if [ "$LCDOK" = 1 ]; then
		putlcd_result $service $?

		# Wait a while, so the user can see the result.
		sleep 1
	fi
done

Similarly for stopping services.  An example /etc/rc.lcd could be:
#!/bin/sh

putlcd_starting () {
	putlcd "Starting..." "$1"
}

putlcd_putlcd_result () {
	if [ "$2" = 0 ]; then
		putlcd "Started:" "$1"
	else
		putlcd "Failed to start:" "$1"
	fi
}

These shell scripts will probably need some tidying, but it's a start.
- --
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Stuart Longland -oOo- http://stuartl.longlandclan.hopto.org |
| Atomic Linux Project     -oOo-    http://atomicl.berlios.de |
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| I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
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